Contact:

Serena Jiwani

sjiwani@unfoundation.org

Jenni Lee

jlee@unfoundation.org

The United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation) announced today the appointment of Paul Margie as Senior Director for Technology Partnerships and Mitul Shah as Director for Technology Partnerships. In these positions, Margie and Shah will lead the UN Foundation’s landmark partnership with the Vodafone Group Foundation, working to strengthen the United Nations’ ability to achieve development goals using mobile communications and other technologies.

“As new members of the UN Foundation team, Paul Margie and Mitul Shah’s abilities to integrate communications technology into the important development work of the United Nations will lead to social and economic progress worldwide,” said Senator Timothy E. Wirth, President of the UN Foundation.

In June, 2004, The UN Foundation and the Vodafone Group Foundation, the foundation of the world’s leading mobile telecommunications company, announced a five-year partnership agreement worth $27.4 million (£15 million), the largest financial and time commitment made by any corporation to the UN Foundation. To date, the UN Foundation contributes £1 for every £2 contributed by the Vodafone Group Foundation.

Margie and Shah are working with the United Nations, the Vodafone Group Foundation, and the technology industry to develop new initiatives to use mobile technology for program activities tied to health, environmental, economic or social development as well as reaching out to Vodafone’s customers to raise awareness and funds for the UN’s causes.

Paul Margie will direct the partnership drawing from his policy and coalition building experience to consider ways the partnership can integrate mobile technology into the UN’s development work. Prior to joining the UN Foundation, Margie was Legal Advisor to Commissioner Michael J. Copps at the Federal Communications Commission. Previously, he was Senior Commerce Counsel for Senator John D. Rockefeller IV. He has also worked for Wiley, Rein & Fielding, a Washington, D.C. law firm. Margie is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University. He received his legal education from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from Haverford College.

Mitul Shah will work with Paul Margie to manage the Vodafone partnership activities and implement technology partnerships. Before joining the UN Foundation, Shah was Director of Programs for the International Youth Foundation (IYF), where he managed a global education initiative which integrates mobile technology into the classrooms of underserved schools and communities. Prior to his work with IYF he was a Senior Consultant with Inforte Corporation, and an Analyst for Hewitt Associates. Shah is an MBA candidate at the University of Maryland and received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Riverside.

###

The UN Foundation was created in 1998 with businessman and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support United Nations’ causes. The UN Foundation promotes a more peaceful, prosperous, and just world through the support of the UN. Through its grant making and by building new and innovative public-private partnerships, the UN Foundation acts to meet the most pressing health, humanitarian, socioeconomic, and environmental challenges of the 21st century. (www.unfoundation.org)